Published by Adlard Coles Nautical an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP www.adlardcoles.com Text copyright © Nic Compton 2014 First edition published 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Hardback: 978-1-4729-0275-7 ePub: 978-1-4729-0924-4 ePDF: 978-1-4729-0925-1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission in writing of the publishers. The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is produced using paper that is made from wood grown in managed, sustainable forests. It is natural, renewable and recyclable. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. ART EDITOR: Louise Turpin Photography: Nic Compton and Joe McCarthy Chapter 2 opener photograph (p24–25) © Christian Février / Bluegreen Pictures
Typeset in 10pt Avenir Printed and bound in China by Toppan Leefung Printing Note: while all reasonable care has been taken in the publication of this book, the publisher takes no responsibility for the use of the methods or products described in the book.
nic compton
the Anatomy of sail The yacht dissected and explained
Introduction 6
1
the basics 8
2
Hull & deck 24
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
· WORKING BOATS 10 · RACING YACHTS 12 · CRUISING YACHTS 14 · RIG TYPES 16 · WOOD 18 · FIBreGLASS & COMPOSITE 20 · STEEL & ferro 22
· · · · · · · · ·
BOWS 26 STERNS 30 SHEERS 34 KEELS 36 RUDDERS 38 DECKS 40 BULWARKS 42 figureheads & carvings 44 cove lines 46
3
CHAPTER
rig 48
· sails 50 · spinnakers & poles 52 · reefing 54 · masts 56 · spreaders 58 · standing rigging 60 · terminals 62 · RAtlines & mast steps 64 · hanks & slides 66 · bands & irons 68 · bowsprits 70 · dolphin strikers 72 · bitts 74 · bowsprit travellers 76 · bUMKINS 78 · booms 80 · goosenecks 82 · vangs 84 · crutches & gallows 86 · yards & gaffs 88 · jaws & saddles 90 · hoops & lacing 92 · blocks 94 · turning blocks 96 · mainsheet travellers 98 · winches 100 · pin rails & belaying pins 102 · jammers & clutches 104 · running rigging 106
5
fittings & equipment 120
CHAPTER
· cabin trunks 110 · COCKPITS 112 · HATCHES 114 · WHEELS 116 · TILLERS 118
· CLEATS 122 · FAIRLEADS 124 · SAMPSON POSTS 126 · BOW ROLLERS 128 · ANCHORS 130 · GUARDRAILS & PULPITS 132 · DAVITS 134 · FLAGS & FLAGSTAFFS 136 · PORTHOLES 138 · PASSeRELLES & BOARDING LADDERS 140 · VENTS142 · LIFEBuoYS 144 · CHAFE GUARDS 146 · ROPEWORK 148 · LEATHERWORK 150 · FENDERS 152 · AWNINGS & COVERS 154 · TENDERS 156
6
below decks 158
7
mechanics 170
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
· SALOONS 160 · CHART TABLES 162 · GALLEYS 164 · CABINS 166 · HEADS 168
· ENGINES 172 · PROPELLERS 174 · WINDLASSES 176 · navigation
Contents
4
on deck 108
CHAPTER
instruments 178 · COMPASSES 180 · BINNACLES 182 · navigation LIGHTS 184 · solar & wind power 186 GLOSSARY 188 Index 190 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 192
anatom y of sail
introduction You might think you’ve picked up a lovely photographic book celebrating the most beautiful modern and classic boats around the world. And so you have. Only we’ve tried to make this one a little bit different. Rather than simply filling page after page with pretty pictures, we’ve zoomed in really close to examine the physiology of what those pictures actually contain.
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That wide angle action shot of the 1888 cutter Partridge storming down the Solent after her landmark restoration (p76)? Even a complete landlubber can sense the drama and respond to the picture on a compositional level. A boating geek, however, will be more interested in the complicated rigging arrangement and specialised hardware which the picture displays with anatomical precision. Likewise the shot of the Grand Surprise being craned out of the water in St Valery de Cau, with the picturesque terraced buildings of the old town behind (p36). The non-initiated might wonder how that boat is standing there, apparently balanced on nothing more than its narrow keel. Most experienced sailors will instantly recognise a modern racing design with an extreme hull form and want to know more. Most sailing pictures can be read on two levels. We are surrounded by great images of boats which could yield valuable information not just about those particular vessels but about sailing boats in general, if only someone could ‘interpret’ the picture for us. Which is exactly what this book tries to do. Opening with a general introduction to sailing, from its origins right up to the present, the book looks at the function of sailing boats and the materials from which they are made, as well as the major rig types. Chapter 2 looks at the main elements which make a boat – the bits that determine its visual character and behaviour under sail. This is all about form. Why do some boats have pointy bows while others have blunt bows? Which is safer at sea: the classic counter stern or the modern ‘sugar scoop’ stern? And why does that Grand Surprise have such a bloomin’ deep keel?
3–7 examine specific parts of the sailboat’s anatomy – the rig, deck structures, general hardware, accommodation and mechanics – and dissects them piece by piece to see what they do and how they differ from one boat to the next. There are countless types of cleats, for instance, so what makes one better for a particular job than another? Can you tell a symmetric spinnaker from an asymmetric one? A tri-radial from a cross-cut? And what, exactly, are mast spreaders for? Along the way, the novice sailor will pick up all kinds of nautical jargon simply by looking at the many variations
introduction
Having discussed the general vocabulary of sailing, we then delve a bit deeper. Much deeper in fact. Chapters
on a theme, while the more experienced might learn a thing or two as well (do you really know what a whisker is? Or when the first fin-keeled boat was designed? And what about Kelvin’s balls?). Where necessary, diagrams are included for clarification and, for anyone who’s new to all this, there’s a crib sheet at the back in the form of a glossary. Why collect all these photographs in the first place? My own obsession with boat gear no doubt stems from my childhood on boats, when my weekly job was to polish the brass. As well as door handles and latches, that included the steering wheel boss and rim, various rubbing strips and, if I was feeling brave, the drum on the aft windlass. In the evenings, I spent a lot of time lying in my bunk, counting the deck beams with my toes, which taught me all about the structural properties of a well-found wooden yacht. Things got worse when I became a boatbuilder and was immersed in the minutiae of fitting out and repairing boats of various types, including wood, steel, glassfibre and ferrocement. There’s nothing like being asked to shape a set of spars for a 50ft ketch from Douglas fir tree trunks to make you appreciate the correct dimensions of a wooden mast. Even when I turned to writing and photography and was sent on assignment to the Côte d’Azur, I couldn’t stop myself taking as many pictures of cast bronze deck fittings and steamed mast hoops as of boats sailing across sparkling blue seas. Over the years, this addiction turned into a library of pictures, which in turn formed the basis of this book. If I was just a photographer, no doubt I would have turned it all into a regular book of pretty pictures, but as a writer/photographer/sailor, I feel a duty to inform as well as to entertain. Hopefully this book achieves both those objectives.
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1 CHAPTER
The basics
H
ow were sailing boats created, and why? It’s easy to take the modern pleasure yacht for granted, but for hundreds of years the primary purpose of sail was to power the working boats that fished, fought or ferried
cargo and passengers around the world. Sailing for pleasure is a relatively recent phenomenon. And while most modern boats are made from fibreglass, there are many other materials that serve the purpose as well if not better, including wood, steel and concrete. This chapter looks at the functions sailboats serve, the materials from which they are made, and the most common types of rigs found on the water today.
the basics 10
working boats Ever since the first sailboat was invented in Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago, the majority of boats have been built to work. Trade was usually the driving force, as well as fishing and transport. Ancient Greece was largely built on the ability of ships to conquer foreign lands and maintain trade, as were the Roman, British and Spanish empires. Much of the world once depended on the cod caught by wooden fishing boats in the North Atlantic. Workboats, then, have changed the course of human history. Yet, remarkably, no two workboat types are the same. Local geography, weather and materials have determined the shape and size of craft best suited to each particular area: massive barges to carry loads up and down the Thames; delicate catamarans to skip from island to island in the Pacific; seaworthy double-enders to negotiate the choppy seas off Norway; voluminous junks to carry loads up and down the Chinese coast, and so on. Nowadays, motor boats have taken over the functions that sailing workboats used to fulfil in most parts of the world – with the notable exception of the Falmouth oyster boats, which still fish on the River Fal in
Cornwall in the old way, thanks to a bylaw designed to preserve the stock of oysters. But the influence of working boats lives on, either directly in boats converted to other uses, such as tourism, or indirectly in the design aesthetic of contemporary designs – such as the Dutch botter, still built to the same principles as working boats of 200 years ago.
Clo c kwise from b o tto m l e ft:
Sailing boats are still used to fish for oysters on the River Fal. Ireland’s Hookers evolved as hardy, yet beautiful, cargo carriers. On the East Coast of America, schooners such as the Mercantile carried cargo. Thames barges were designed to carry large loads around the coast of England.
RACING YACHTS Cleopatra apparently liked nothing better than to cruise down the Nile on her own barge, and the Roman emperor Caligula built floating palaces to potter about Lake Nemi – so they were arguably the first yachtsman
the basics
and yachtswoman. Sailing for pleasure didn’t really take off until the 17th century, however, when the first jaght were launched in the Netherlands. Designed for speed rather than weight-carrying, these shallow, flatbottomed craft were used to carry pilots to waiting ships or to chase pirates and smugglers. They soon caught the eye of wealthy traders who decided to have some built for their own fun – and thus the sport of yachting was born. Yacht design has evolved dramatically in the 400 years since then, with
12
the prevailing ‘cod’s head and mackerel tail’ (ie bluff bow and slender stern) giving way to almost exactly the opposite approach. Today’s ocean racers have fine bows to cut through the water, with wide, flat sterns to surf down the waves. Instead of long keels running the whole length of the boat, they have narrow fins with great lozenges of lead hanging down deep below the hull. And, instead of squat, low canvas sails, they have tall, narrow fingers of Kevlar reaching up into the sky.
Rig h t: The famous J-Class yachts were used to race for the America’s Cup in the 1930s. After more than 50 years’ absence, they are now back in fashion among the super-rich. Bot t om, left t o r ig h t: The selection series for the 2013 America’s Cup was raced on 42ft (13m) catamarans, before switching to 72-footers (22m) for the actual Cup. A modern racing fleet makes an early start for the Round the Island race off Cowes, in the UK. The America’s Cup Class was used to race for the Cup from 1992 to 2007.
the basics 14
CRUISING YACHTS For the first 200 years, yachting was mainly about racing. People who went ‘cruising’ in the current sense of the word were called explorers, and indeed the ship which first discovered Australia for the Europeans was a Dutch jaght by the name of Duyfken. It wasn’t until the late 18th century that the idea of sailing long distances for pleasure began to gain credence. Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the first cruising yachtsmen, and in 1888 chartered a yacht to sail across the Pacific. He was followed a few years later by Joshua Slocum, who in 1898 became the first man to sail around the world single-handed. It took him more than three years – a leisurely cruise indeed, compared to the current record of under two months for the same journey.
Top : The Victoire 37 is a contemporary cruising yacht built in Holland with a traditional appearance, but a modern fin keel and full amenities.
ease of handling, a comfortable motion at sea, and hopefully good looks.
Abo v e: Catamarans, such as this 62ft (19m) Tribe, can make comfortable and stable cruising yachts. They are also fast, reaching speeds of up to 35 knots.
At the same time, no one wants to sail a slouch, and sailing just one knot
Op p osit e page,Top: The Sunsail F40 is
A successful cruising yacht combines spacious accommodation with
crossing oceans. A successful design is a compromise between comfort
a ‘performance cruiser’ developed by the charter company Sunsail. Although aimed at beginners, these boats still require a competent skipper and crew.
and speed – which to a modern mind suggests a long fin keel, which
Bot t om: A traditional cruising yacht with
(ie one mile per hour) slower can add up to several days’ delay when
gives good speed while making the boat docile to handle and shallow enough to explore remote anchorages.
a long keel provides a steady ride, if not a very exciting one. The 1957 Caper is fitted with a modern rig on a classic hull, making her easier to handle.
the basics 16
rig types Sedans, coupés, hatchbacks, estates, sports, pick-ups, 4 x 4, SUVs, campers… Just as cars come in many shapes and sizes, so do sailing boats, and it takes a bit of practice to recognise them. Like car engines, different sail plans serve different purposes. One is powerful but tricky to handle (eg lugger), while another is more versatile (eg gaff cutter), and another more suited to short-handed sailing (eg ketch). New materials and equipment also play a major role in the development of sails. It’s long been known that a single large sail is more efficient than several small sails, for instance, which is why cutters and sloops are the rigs of choice for racing. Until the invention of winches, however, all that sail area had to be controlled by hand using blocks and many, many yards of rope. It’s no coincidence that the largest cutter ever built (the 1903 America’s Cup defender Reliance) also sported the first ever set of underdeck winches. Even with the benefit of winches, large sails need large crews to handle them, which is why sail plans with two masts, such as ketch or yawl, are preferred by cruising folk, who are more interested in comfort than speed. Logic aside, sailors often favour certain types of rig for purely aesthetic or cultural reasons – which is why Americans love schooners and Brits love cutters.
Abo v e: A full-rigged ship from the Age of Sail. The three forward masts carry square sails on their horizontal spars, or yards. This is the rig that powered famous ships such as the Cutty Sark. Op p osit e page, clo c kw ise fr o m t op left: The gaff ketch rig is extremely
versatile and ideal for this Norwegian rescue boat. Fewer, bigger sails provide more power, however, which is why racing boats are usually rigged as sloops. For long ocean crossings, the schooner rig is hard to beat, especially on a boat this size (the 181ft/51m Shenandoah). Below: The lug rig is essentially a square
sail turned sideways, with one end of the yard pushed out. It was widely used by fishing boats, such as this French replica.
wood Once upon a time, all boats were built of wood – be it dug-out canoes, balsa rafts or laboriously jointed Viking longboats. And wood is still the most versatile and easy to repair building material for yachts. Trouble is, it also tends to split, crack, rot and generally try by any means to turn itself back into vegetable matter. Modern materials, such as plywood and epoxy, have helped improve the durability of wooden boats, as well A b o v e : Built in 1973 from triple layers of laminated mahogany, Naif came at the end of the wooden boat era – after everyone had switched en masse to fibreglass.
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B e l o w : Traditional wooden boatbuilding at the International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS) in Newport, Rhode Island. This is a typical carvel planked hull, where the planks are fitted edge to edge. The large angular structures are the templates (or moulds) that are removed once the planking is complete.
as making them easier to build. Whereas in the past you’d need a sixyear apprenticeship to build a boat using traditional methods, nowadays anyone with basic skills and a little common sense can knock one up using the stitch and glue method. Even luxury superyachts are often built of wood, as modern strip-plank technology can be the most efficient way to build a large, one-off design.
Yacht builders have developed something of a bad name among environmentalists due to their extensive use of rainforest timbers such as teak and mahogany. Even though the total amount used by boatbuilders is relatively tiny compared to, say, furniture makers, it is nevertheless incumbent on all craftsmen to make sure all their timber comes from sustainable sources. One solution is to only use local timbers, such as
not commonly used for constructing yachts, such as cedar, can now be
Abo v e: An exquisite sailing dinghy built using indigenous timbers at the Wooden Boat Centre in Tasmania. The hull is clinker-built, which means the edges of the planks overlap. The frames (transverse timbers) will be steamed in next.
used with alacrity.
Below: Wood is still used for large
oak, elm and larch, although these tend to be less durable than tropical timbers. Again, modern boatbuilding techniques mean that some timbers
one-off projects, such as this 70ft (21m) cruising yacht. Narrow strips of wood (usually cedar) are glued edge to edge, and the hull is sealed with epoxy and sheathed below the waterline with a thin layer of fibreglass.
19
fibreglass & composite the basics
When fibreglass first appeared in the 1960s, it was hailed as the ultimate boatbuilding material. Relatively cheap to build (once you had the mould), durable and requiring minimal maintenance, fibreglass yachts certainly seemed like the modern answer to those attention-seeking old wooden boats. And certainly the new medium helped democratise sailing, as the public reaped the benefits of standardisation in lower prices and predictable performance. Anyone could buy a 24ft yacht, stick it in a marina and not worry about whether the decks were going to dry
20
out during a long hot summer or rot away during a long wet winter. But the new medium wasn’t quite as foolproof as originally thought. Like wood, it proved to be porous and if the lay up wasn’t done correctly, water infiltrated the fibre and caused ‘fibreglass pox’, or osmosis, which
Op p osit e page, Top: This Class
40 racing boat is built out of ‘infused’ fibreglass to be as light as possible. The hull, deck and internal structures all have foam cores. Ce nt re left: The mould of the Contessa 32 yacht built by Jeremy Rogers. The inside of this mould is lined with gel coat and fibreglass to create the boat’s hull. Ce nt re rig h t: The Folkboat is the
was messy and expensive to treat. There was also the question of what
quintessential affordable sailing boat, originally built in wood and now produced by the hundreds in fibreglass.
to do with the boats once they were no longer needed, as unlike their
Bot t om: Pop open the Contessa mould,
wooden counterparts they were unlikely to just rot away. Since the 1990s,
and this is what you get: a sleek, safe and reliable cruising yacht that has a cult following around the world.
the technology has been improved to get rid of the problem of osmosis. The problem of what to do with the old ones remains, however, and the number of elderly fibreglass boats grows year by year.
Below: The Tofinou 9.5 is a modern
fibreglass boat with traditional styling. The deck is fibreglass too, but with an 8mm layer of teak to please the eyes and feet.
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fibreglass & composite
This beautifully illustrated reference work for all boat lovers is an encyclopedic treasure trove of fascinating detail about every element of a yacht, from keel to binnacle, wheel and mast.
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